Seals

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

Starting yesterday, Hanna started sounding like a seal with the
wonderful barking cough of croup. Croup is one of those illnesses you
cannot do much about. You shut the person up in the bathroom with the
hot water from the shower making steam and it helps…until you step out
of the bathroom. You can go out into the cool night air…and it helps
for a moment. But no cough medicine available at the drug store will
do a thing.

Sin is like that. We can try to wash off our sins on our own…but they
are still there. We can try to do good things to make up for our bad
ones, but that doesn't help. There is only one prescription to get
rid of the symptoms of sin: the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Only when we admit our sin and ask for forgiveness can
our sins be wiped away. Jesus already took care of all of them two
thousand years ago.

In Hebrews 4 (Message version) it explains it this way: Now that we
know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to
God—let's not let it slip through our fingers. We don't have a priest
who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and
testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let's walk right up to
him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the
help.

In 1 John chapter 1 it says: If we claim that we're free of sin,
we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On
the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he
won't let us down; he'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins
and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we've never sinned,
we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like
that only shows off our ignorance of God.

God sets us free from the burden of our sins through Jesus Christ. We
just have to ask for that freedom by confessing our sins. Let's get
set free and ask for the help of Jesus!

Stewards

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

I hope you are well this morning! We have had an interesting morning
so far! We have a Ford Expedition. It has been a wonderful car for
carpooling and for bringing friends home with us and of course moving
all our worldly possessions to Red Springs. However, in the last
several weeks it has refused to start. The battery keeps dying. And
Ford has had a hard time diagnosing it because when you jump the car,
it resets the computer inside the brain of the vehicle. So, today, it
was towed to the dealer dead as a doornail so that they can fix what
is wrong! (hopefully!) However, it did give us an opportunity to
walk to work today.

Yesterday, at a wonderful Laity Sunday, Roger Sheets reminded us why
driving a big car like that which only gets 18-25 miles to a gallon
isn't such a good idea. To be blunt, we are killing our planet with
our addiction to plastic and driving big cars and the like. God gave
us creation to live in yet we tear down the forests, drive animals to
extinction, and destroy mountains in order to burn coal.

The message is hard to hear. We feel hopeless. However, Psalm 71:5
reminds us, "For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my
youth." And Romans 15:13 tell us, "May the God of hope fill you with
all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy
Spirit you may abound in hope."

There is hope. The earth does not have to be completely destroyed.
However, it will take actions from people like you and me. What are
we each willing to do? What conveniences are we willing to give up?
Could we stop using styrofoam? Could we walk to church or the bank or
the grocery store? Could we bring our own boxes for our leftovers
from restaurants? Could we bring our own fabric bags rather than use
the plastic ones at the grocery store? Let's share our ideas for
cutting down waste, plastic use, and ways to use less energy. If you
would like to continue the conversation Roger started yesterday, he
has several interesting videos that we could watch and discuss.

What are we willing to do to be good stewards of God's creation?

98…99….100

Good Morning to you in the Trinity Tribe,

Today is a special day! It probably isn't on your calendar, but it is definitely on mine! Today is my 100th day at Trinity as your pastor. My doesn't time fly! I have been reflecting on what this first 100 days with you have held. We have said goodbye to some wonderful women who were important to us. We have dined together at the Lord's Table four times. We have spent a lot of time reading the Bible. We have started new Sunday School classes and new Bible studies. We had an AMAZING Family Fun Night! We have enjoyed some amazing Trinity cooking! We have had a few meetings. We have done a lot of renovation to the parsonage and some to the church building itself. Unfortunately, we have not had a full house on Sunday mornings at worship or in Sunday School. We have only taken in one new member who happens to be my husband. We have lost 4 members to death and had two transfer to other churches. And the financial picture for Trinity of late has been uncomfortably slim.

So, what are you willing to work on during our next 100 days together? I will continue to put good work into my sermons. However, I was serious in my sermon yesterday. I would like feedback. Do the sermons walk and talk out in the world on Monday morning or do they remain in the sanctuary? I will continue to visit people who invite me. So, please invite me! I will continue to work on balancing the paperwork aspect of being the pastor, especially without secretarial support, with the important part of being with people. I continue to pray about who we can invite to be a part of our congregation that isn't with us on Sundays already and continue to be invitational to the people I meet. I will continue to raise the issue of giving to the church and to the world. Gathering money on a Sunday morning is about spiritual health, about what real life is all about, and about acknowledging who’s we are rather than the pastor trying to get a raise. I will continue to pray fervently for you.

What else do I need to focus my time on? What do you think are the burning issues for Trinity? Who has not been to church that might need a note or card or personal invitation to come back? Where can you and I partner together to provide radical hospitality to others as well as take risks in mission and ministry to the world? Where can you and I work together to make sure there are plenty of opportunities for intentional spiritual development for all ages? Where can you and I partner to make sure we have passionate worship? What must you and I do to help people understand that extravagant generosity blesses the giver even more than the recipient?

Where will we be 100 days from now? Where will we be 1000 days from now? Where will we be 10,000 days from now?

I pray that you have a wonderful day!

Important Calendar Items to Note:
1. Remember that tomorrow night is Charge Conference at 7:30. (I had it incorrectly in last week's bulletin for 7pm. It is definitely at 7:30.) We will worship together and then go over all the business for the church for the year.
2. Bible study will meet Wednesday morning at 10am. Nurture committee will me right afterwards.
3. I will be at a meeting about rural church ministry tomorrow (Tuesday) all day. So, please call my cell phone if you need something immediately. However, I will be out in a rural area, so I can't promise to have signal!
4. No choir this week because of Charge Conference. Please sit with your families and friends this Sunday.
5. This Sunday is Children's Sabbath. Make sure that your kids and grandkids are here! It will be a special day!
Please send in your vote for the Lay Ministry of the year. I have attached a ballot or there are plenty available at the church. Help us select the most effective ministry for 2010.

Homecoming is Coming! For all you out of town folks, don't forget that the last Sunday of October is Homecoming! We would love to see you on October 31st at 10:45 for worship and then in the Fellowship Hall for lunch afterward! Put it on your calendar!


I wish we had the capability of showing videos during worship. If so, this would be the perfect one to have for the Sunday closest to Veteran's Day. I invite you to watch it. It was very thought provoking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=KTb6qdPu8JE

Praying for the Pews to be Packed

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

I hope you are well this morning. I am beginning to wonder if singing that anthem about rain pouring down was such a good idea or not! ;-) We do need the rain, of course. Cooler temperatures seem to be here as well! Maybe we will have fall after all!

I would like to hear thoughts from you about these two questions:

Who is this church?

Does the church reflect the community and the local schools? (Racially, economically, age, etc.)

I finally got around to reading the Red Springs Citizen this morning, since I had a busy afternoon and evening. L.A. had an article that caught my attention. She talked about how our church lost five people in one week to death. She mentioned our church by name multiple times which seemed to imply we are all dying off here at Trinity. She then talked about how churches in town are not reflecting the population of the world…that we are all grey-haired and dying. My take of what she says is that we are not open to people that look different than "we" do. While that critique has truth in it for mainline Protestant churches around the country, I am not ready to say that is the end of the story especially for us at Trinity. In my answer of the second question above that we must answer at Charge Conference next week, is that we are growing into the call to love our neighbor, all our neighbors. Our congregation is NOT all white or all elderly. We have plenty of room for growth in this area. L was exactly right saying that we have plenty of room in the back, front, right and left of our church pews. We have not yet reached standing room only.

So my question to you is, what are we going to do about this? In Matthew 28, 18"Then Jesus came to [the Disciples] and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'" Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all the world. I don't know about you, but the world is a pretty big place. I probably won't see all of it before I go on to Glory. However, I see Third Avenue a lot. I see Main Street. What are we doing to reach out to others and invite them inside our walls?

Feeding Jesus is reaching out to others who don't look like the majority of people here. Boy, Girl, and Cub Scouts definitely reach out to the people who are different than us in Red Springs. You should have seen the rainbow of colors of skin at Girl Scouts last week. It was a beautiful thing! How can we capitalize on what we are doing well to make our worship services look the same rainbow way? What might we have to give up? What might we have to modify? What will we have to do to be invitational?

I invite you to join with me in prayer about this opportunity for ministry that is before us. Let's pray until the pews are packed!

Have a blessed day and be a blessing!

Open our eyes

Hello to the Trinity Tribe!

Wow! We have had a lot of rain in the last several days. This is really the first rain that we have had while living in the parsonage. I had no idea of the pools of water that collect in the yard. I really hadn't noticed that there are multiple low places there in amongst the grass and moss growing. Isn't that funny how one thing makes you notice something that you have never seen before. I know that before I was pregnant with Kenna and Hanna, I didn't pay all that much attention to babies. They were cute and all, but they didn't really apply to my life. Now, I notice babies, especially twins or triplets.

Our Christian faith is that way too. We may not have noticed that sad looking person prior to believing in Jesus as our Savior. We may not have thought twice about littering the creation that God made. We may not have intervened in a situation without having the Holy Spirit nudge us to do so. Our belief helps us notice things that we were oblivious to before.

In Matthew 25, Jesus says this, 34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Sometime we have to let our faith open our eyes so that we can see what God would have us do in the world. So, let's have our eagle eyes out to see who we can help this week. Let's be on the lookout for that hurting person. Let's be ready with a kind word for that person who has gotten kicked in the pants one too many times. Let's all be Jesus.

Bravery

Good Morning Trinity Tribe!

Happy Monday to you! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Our new Sunday School classes are going well. The Teen class doubled in size over the weekend. The new adult class had a lively discussion of Roman Catholicism. Adam Hamilton, the leader of our video series, suggests that we can learn things from the Roman Catholic Church: a renewed sense of reverence and an appreciation of ritual.

This morning I have been thinking about bravery. Cindy and Sean did something brave yesterday. They invited people who were visitors to our church to the home group meeting they hosted at her home last night. I am not sure I would have been that bold. But, what great fruit was born from that boldness! Judy and Jerry contributed greatly to our conversation. Plus, I now know both of their names!

Where can be do simple but bold things in our everyday lives to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Who can we spread the Good News to? In 1 Corinthians 1:17 Paul writes, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." How can we preach the gospel without using words? What actions of our everyday lives show what we believe in?

Please continue to be in prayer for those who have lost loved ones. Please pray for Terry's son, Trey, as he faces surgery tomorrow in Alabama (and he is nervous about it.)

Bobbie Lou has shared this prayer request: Would you please ask the congregation tomorrow to remember my sister, Brenda in prayer. She will undergo knee replacement(left) on Tuesday, the 21st, at Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst; then will go to Rehab before coming home. Also, her mother-in-law, Bobbie, who many will know, is critically ill at her home in Ocean Isle Beach, and Hospice is there. Brenda's son and his wife are living there with her. We will be away for a few days. Thank you!!

Thank you for your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness to the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Have a great Monday!

United Methodist Women

Good morning to the Trinity Tribe!

I hope you are all well! I got some good work done yesterday. I still need to plan some more of worship for the rest of the year and into next year, but I made a dent!

Today is the General Meeting of United Methodist Women! I am interested to attend my first one of these!

United Methodist Women is a community of women whose purpose is:

To know God and to experience freedom as whole persons through Jesus Christ
To develop a creative supportive fellowship and
To expand concepts of mission through participation in the global ministries of the church.
Those are wonderful goals. The precursors to UMW developed in the late 1800s when women and children were legally classified as “chattel, legally dead, non-persons.” What a horrid thought: Women and children being non-persons. We learned in school that if it weren't for these women's organizations in all Protestant denominations, the church might have all but disappeared. Women typically attended church more faithfully than men in that time period. Women got excited for Jesus and helping others in their own areas and around the world! Women organized…women prayed…women raised money…and women proclaimed the Gospel! They did this even though they were "non-persons." Pretty amazing! These are all things we should all be proud of.

So, if you know a United Methodist Woman, give her a pat on the back and shake her hand for the proud tradition which she carries.

Why do you go to church?

Good Morning Trinity Tribe,

I don't know about you, but I am still mourning the loss of four of our tribe last week. Continue to keep all five of these families in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you again to all that cooked and cleaned and copied and folded and played!

I hear Aileen is making more and more progress! Keep lifting her and her family up in prayer too!

Yesterday in worship we talked about one of the reasons to go to church, community. We need community to be accountable to, to help us when the going gets rough, and to help keep our flame of faith burning brightly.

So, I thought I might ask: Why do you go to church? If you would either email me back or post your thoughts on our Facebook page, I would be grateful!

And I will be the first person to start.

Why do I go to church? I go to church for a lot of different reasons. I find church comforting. Things are familiar, even as new as I am in the congregation. I like getting hugs and handshakes. I enjoy the music. I feel God in the music. I need accountability. I truly need to have people ask how I am doing and how things are going with my walk with Christ. If I don't have a place to be accountable, I might just skip practicing my faith. I find worship fun as well.

I am working from home today. I am spread out all over the dining room table working on Advent.

Blessings to you all!

:)

September 11

Dear Trinity Tribe,

What a week this has been friends. We go into the weekend with heavy hearts and a few tears along with the rejoicing we are doing because some of our beloved have been reunited with Jesus. Continue to love and support the families who are missing important parts of their own tribe. Cards, calls, and other expressions of love are important in these days and will continue to be important in the weeks and months and years to come.

Please keep Aileen in your prayers. She is doing well, but I am sure she would appreciate prayers as her knees continue healing.

I wanted to share with you what our UMC Council of Bishops have to say about September 11th. The pastor of that non-denominational church in Florida has certainly grabbed his 15 minutes of fame by threatening to burn copies of the Quran. While Americans certainly have right to be angry with the terrorists who killed so many and destroyed so much on September 11, 2001, those terrorists are dead and past being targets of our anger. However, I can find no scriptural basis to think that Jesus would think burning copies of the Quran would solve or prove anything. Jesus said to love our neighbor, not to torment him. If a non-Christian group decided to burn lots of copies of the Bible, it would cause me to feel nothing but anger and hurt. Jesus lived a life of love and reconciliation not anger and hurt.

Therefore, I invite you to spend time in prayer on September 11th: prayer for the families that were affected on that tragic day as well for the peace so dreadfully needed in this world of ours.

UNITED METHODIST COUNCIL OF BISHOPS STATEMENT ON SEPTEMBER 11



As we approach yet another September 11, we are reminded that the world we live in continues to be fragile place where emotions and tensions run high. There are not many of us who will ever forget where we were on that September morning nine years ago. We should never forget those whose lives were taken away in the horror of just a few hours.

September 11 should be, for all of us, a day of prayer for peace in this world. It should be a day for quiet remembrance and reflection as we seek to find and live in the ways of peace. We think of Jesus pausing on his way into the holy city of Jerusalem on the day we call Palm Sunday. He wept over the city – not so much for what was about to happen to him, but because the people did not know the things that make for peace (Luke 19:41-42). We suspect he still weeps, looking out over the world we currently inhabit.

September 11 should be a day of prayer for rebuilding and restoring relationships, and for reaching out to find ways to work and live together in this world. It is not a day for burning the holy book of another faith tradition. Tragically one person has garnered headlines for advocating such a thing. There is nothing of Jesus in such an action. In fact, as we recall, there was a time when the disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven on the perceived enemies for refusing to receive Jesus. No, Jesus said; in fact he “rebuked” those who advocated such a means. (Luke 9:51-55). Such an action is not the way of Jesus, nor the way of peace and love.

There was a meeting earlier this week in Washington, DC, of religious leaders of many faith communities. The United Methodist Church and its Council of Bishops was represented by its Executive Secretary, Bishop Neil L. Irons. The members of the group, in a formal statement, said: “We are committed to building a future in which religious differences no longer lead to hostility or division between communities. Rather, we believe that such diversity can serve to enrich our public discourse about the great moral challenges that face our nation and our planet. On the basis of our shared reflection, we insist that no religion should be judged on the words or actions of those who seek to pervert it through acts of violence; that politicians and members of the media are never justified in exploiting religious differences as a wedge to advance political agendas or ideologies... We work together on the basis of deeply held and widely shared values, each supported by the sacred texts of our respective traditions. We acknowledge with gratitude the dialogues between our scholars and religious authorities that have helped us to identify a common understanding of the divine command to love one’s neighbor. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all see an intimate link between faithfulness to God and love of neighbor; a neighbor who in many instances is the stranger in our midst.“

“We are convinced that spiritual leaders representing the various faiths in the United States have a moral responsibility to stand together and to denounce categorically derision, misinformation or outright bigotry directed against any religious group in this country. Silence is not an option. Only by taking this stand, can spiritual leaders fulfill the highest calling of our respective faiths, and thereby help to create a safer and stronger America for all of our people.”

We urge all of us to approach the remembrance of September 11 in prayer and hope for peace; and in resolving to do everything we can individually and collectively to live the way of Jesus. It is our prayer that this weekend be filled with prayers and not the fires of hatred and irrational rage.



Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster President, Council of Bishops

Bishop Neil L. Irons Executive Secretary, Council of Bishops

Saying Goodbye

Dear Trinity Tribe,

With all that is going on at the church, I did not get a chance to "Tribe" yesterday. I hope you are doing well. I am hanging in there, as they say. I don't look forward to tomorrow's services, and yet I am very much looking forward to them. Flora, Frances, and Dorothy were pillars of this congregation. They will be missed tremendously. However, I rejoice thinking of the reunions that have occurred in heaven with each of these fine women and their husbands and their family and friends that have gone one before. I am looking forward to celebrating Flora and Frances' lives tomorrow. I pray that God surrounds us with the strength of the Holy Spirit as we grieve for our earthly loss.

In John 16, Jesus says, 12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
16"In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."

We will not see Dorothy, Flora, and Frances for a little while. However, we know that we will be reunited with them when Jesus comes to take us home. I take comfort in that thought. Things will be different as we gather together in heaven, but they will be wonderful as we spend eternity worshipping the God that loves us so!

Continue to be wonderful and supportive to their families and to Doris and Roy and Paula and Lee. Terry Coe will be laid to rest tomorrow as well. It has been a rough week for the Trinity Tribe. However, we have each other and we have God surrounding us with love, grace, and peace.

Thank you so much for all that you are doing to love and care for one another!

Time

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

I hope all is well with you this morning!

This morning I have been thinking about how people measure time differently because of their experiences. This morning at 6am we hear loud thumps and the dogs went ballistic. Mark went outside to investigate to discover the roofers had arrived and were setting up for the day of re-roofing the parsonage. They thought that 6am was a perfectly good time to begin the work day. As hot as their work is, I certainly agree. However, it would have been nice to know they were coming that early so that we were prepared.

On Monday, the medical technician took Mark back to be prepped for surgery and told me to wait in the waiting area. A call comes through on the waiting area phone later. The nurse calls to inform me that he had gone into surgery. What? I didn't get to pray with him? I didn't get to say goodbye? I didn't get a last "I love you" in? They were in a rush, so letting me say good-bye and I love you would have taken too much time. Two minutes was too much time.

We, as Christians, also measure time differently. For us, today is not all there is. Today isn't the end of the story. Even death isn't the end of the story for us. In Revelation 21 the writer explains the end of time this way, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea." This time will end. This earth as we know it, will end. Things will change and be renewed. It is hard for us to understand, but we have faith that it will happen. People who don't believe in Christ do not measure time in this way, but we do. The measurement of time depends on your perspective. Our perspective is focused on Jesus Christ.

Continue praying for healing for Louise, Aileen, Sam, Mark, and Pam.

Have a wonderful day!

Cog in the Machine

Good Morning Trinity Tribe,

I hope you are well this morning! I am still tired from yesterday's ordeal at the hospital, but I feel better than Mark does! ;-) I finally got Hanna an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. So, hopefully that will go well this afternoon.

Mark went to the hospital not knowing if the surgery would occur yesterday or not. He went to an appointment several weeks back with the ENT thinking that was his pre-operative appointment. It was in one sense, with the ENT. However, he did not have an appointment with anesthesia or anything else. He told them that he would be on leave for two weeks and would be able to go to an appointment the first week of leave since we would be in the mountains on the second week. Of course, with a big bureaucracy, that didn't happen. They scheduled him for Thursday of last week. And then no one bothered to call and tell him about the appointment. He happened to call three times checking on it and finally talked to a human on the third try.

Being a Christian can be like this adventure in the Army medical system. We have to fight to get to the end goal of Christ. We have to fight our desire to go to bed early rather than studying our bible. We have to keep making appointments for ourselves to spend time in prayer. We have to go to church even if we are angry with someone there. It is a place full of sinners, after all so we will hurt one another's feelings. In the end, just like Mark got his sinus issues taken care of, God will take care of us. God helps us apologize when we have hurt someone. God helps us to open our Bible when we would rather be lazy and watch TV. God helps us keep that appointment for prayer. We just need to be open to God's help. I am stubborn and like to do things myself, so I still struggle with letting God help me. I pray that you do better in that than I do!

Bam! Getting clubbed by a devotion!

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

How is your Spiritual Fitness this morning? In terms of my physical fitness, I will report that we walked as a family last night, and I walked this morning! ;-)

I am in the middle of the Evangelism Committee for the North Carolina Conference. I was personally convicted by our devotional this morning. Carol led us in an imaginative reading where we put ourselves in Martha's shoes. We have so many busy things to do. We are juggling balls and spinning plates. Then we talk to Jesus. He loves us. He reminds us of what is really important. Then we name those burdens. Then we lay them down. And walk away.

I am terrible about asking for help. Just ask Mark about how I battle with this. I was convicted in this devotional time. I need to continue to work on asking for people to help me. I have been so busy with moving and unpacking that I haven't asked for help.

So, here I will give it a go…

If you were not in worship yesterday, I, and the Education/Fellowship committee, need help pulling off the Family Fun Night…the Back to School Edition. We need snow cone makers. Shoppers. Hot dog cookers. Smiling welcoming faces. I personally need several someones to help get the equipment back to Fort Bragg on the Monday afterwards. Mark is having surgery, so I don't have his help! ;-)

So, prayerfully consider helping this event happen next Sunday, August 22nd from 5-7pm.

On your knees

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

I hope you are all well! My wonderful husband, Mark, is almost finished with the bathroom renovations, so I have been putting things away and cleaning all morning. I even did some cleaning last night while he was working. It doesn't look like it when you look in my office, but I will finish shortly! ;-)

I was on my knees cleaning the toilet and began to think. Why do we pray on our knees? Of course, there are references to it in the bible. Like I Kings 8:54: When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the LORD, he rose from before the altar of the LORD, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.

For me today, I prayed while I cleaned the toilet. That is not a glamorous job, by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is something that MUST be done! I can't think of a better time to pray. For me, it reminded me that I am merely a creation of an awesome God. I need to be humble. I need to pray often, in all of the normal daily things. I don't have to pray in the church at the altar exclusively. God wants us to pray during all that we do. God wants us to do worshipful work…no matter if that is cleaning toilets or balancing spreadsheets or typing legal briefs. No matter what we do, if we do it with an eternal attitude and as worship, it is pleasing to God.

Enjoy your worshipful work today! I am off to the New Pastor's luncheon and then back here to finish cleaning up my mess, worshipfully!

Just happening….

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

I hope you are all well! We got several more boxes unpacked last night, and I even unpacked one or two this morning! Mark is putting the finishing touches on the renovation of the bathroom here at the office, and it looks GREAT! One day soon, we will be organized! ;-)

I sent out an email yesterday afternoon because I noticed that the Red Springs Senior Citizens will be gathering at Trinity on Friday. I asked if the event "just happened." What I really meant, was did the group manage itself or is that something that we, as a host church, manage. And it turns out that the later is the case, of course.

Church is a place where you think things "just happen." People joke that "the church mice" did this or that. What does that say about church and church people?

First, people choose to invest in church, both the organization and the people. What would Trinity be without the people over the years who have chosen to invest time in doing the piddly things like polishing the brass or organizing the archives or making sure the newsletter went out? These are not things that people put a plaque up to praise your work. These, instead, are the unnoticed things. People who count the offering after church or make sure the flowers are watered are the unsung heroes of our community. They don't HAVE to do what they do. Instead, they choose to invest of themselves, of their time, and often of their financial means to get things done that need doing. Other people invest in people themselves. Who here can't name names of Sunday School teachers or choir directors or youth leaders that impacted our lives? Other people invested in us and in our development as Christians. For example, I went to visit Betsy last week. I found out that David and Patricia had been to see her just the day before. Betsy had been the youth director here at Trinity. She meant a lot to them, so they took the time to visit her down in Lumberton at Wesley Pines. She had invested in them and in their family, so they returned the favor and paid her a visit. That shows how important it is to invest in others. In both arenas, we need more people that are willing to use their gifts for the good of the community at this church and in every church.

Secondly, the fact that things don't magically happen at church tell us that we are needed. Everyone who walks through our doors is important and needed. We don't want you to just warm up the pew from 11-12 on Sundays. We need your prayers for our ministries and for our people and for all the people hurting in the world. We need your presence. Church is not the same when you aren't here. We need your gifts…all of them, not just the financial ones. We need your expertise at hospitality or cooking or laughing or playing with children. No matter what your gifts are, we need them in this community. We need your service. There are many people in this community and around the world to serve. We also need your witness. Where has God worked in your life? Where is God working in your life right now? Who has invested in you? What has changed your heart?

In 1 Peter 4:9-11 the writer states, 9"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. 11If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen."

We are means of grace for other people. We can be a conduit for the Holy Spirit to act. God can use our words, our work, our witness, and even our countenance to touch other people and bring them to faith.

In what or whom will you invest yourself today? Will those investments have eternal reward?

Feeling Like Home

Good Monday Morning Trinity Tribe,

We had a wonderful worship service yesterday! My family joined the church officially, which is great and makes me happy! If you weren't with us, we missed you! We hope you will be with us next week! I have attached the bulletin and sermon, if you would like to keep in the loop!

We are officially moved into the parsonage! Hip Hip Hooray! I am within striking distance of having the kitchen together. Mark worked hard yesterday getting our beds put together and organizing other things. We are living in a fishbowl since the blinds aren't up yet, which makes mornings funny. We get to see everyone go by as we eat breakfast!

Thank you to all the people who helped us move in on Saturday! It went quickly since you were so kind to give up your Saturday afternoon to help us!

Living in the parsonage is a new experience for us. My grandparents who were in ministry no longer served a church when I came along and our last church didn't have a parsonage, so none of us have not lived in a parsonage before. It is a house owned by the church and provided because it is too difficult to buy and sell houses as pastors move around. Looking at the wall of previous pastors here at Trinity, some only stayed for a year or two! There is no way that a pastor could afford to buy and sell a house that quickly.

400 East Third Avenue is your house. People in this church raised the money to build it back in the early 1950s. Part of the church budget is saved every year for repairs on the parsonage. In the Book of Discipline para. 258.2.g.16 it says, "The parsonage is to be mutually respected by the pastor's family as the porperty of the church and by the church as a place of privacy for the pastor's family. The chairperson of the committee on pastor-parish relations, the chairperson of the board of trustees, and the pastor shall make an annual review of the church-owned parsonage to assure proper maintenance."

We, of course, will have that annual review every January. We also want to have an open house in the late fall or early winter so that everyone can see the "new" floors in the parsonage, so be watching your bulletin and newsletter for details!

400 East Third Avenue is also our home. Right now it looks like a rummage sale with all the boxes, but soon we will make it look like real people live there! We hope that you will drop by and say hello when you are in the neighborhood. We have already enjoyed walking the dogs around Flora McDonald and the surrounding neighborhood. We ran into church folks as we walked and had a great conversation. We are having a great time as official members of the Red Springs community!

And to quote a country song, "It feels like home!"

Opportunities in the Mountains!

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

I hope you are all well! I am still dog tired but very grateful for my 3 block commute!

I have been selected for a wonderful opportunity that is wonderful for Trinity as well. The United Methodist Church runs a retreat and conference and support center for rural ministry in Hayesville, NC. The Hinton Rural Life Center will be a great place for us to do a church mission trip. They do a Habitat for Humanity type mission program where we would go in and repair or build homes for people in poverty in the Appalachian Mountains along with having Bible study and lots of fun. They also hold many workshops to support pastors, especially those in rural communities. One of the projects they administer, thanks to a Lily Foundation Grant, is to support new pastors in smaller churches. This project is a continuing education program aimed at developing and sustaining effective pastoral leadership in the small membership church. I was nominated and then selected to participate. I am very excited about the opportunity! It will help me be a more effective pastor for Trinity. Trainers from Hinton will also come visit us here in Red Springs! They will come and help us with our long-range planning for how we will minister to Red Springs for the decades to come. And to top it off, the continuing education, on-site visit, travel, meals etc. is practically free for the church thanks to the Lily grant. Hooray for bargains!

I am thrilled to be a part of this both for my personal growth as well as for Trinity! It does mean that I will be out of town from Monday morning to Thursday evening six times over the next 30 months. The first week is next week. If you have a pastoral emergency, please call. I will have our friends over at the Baptist and Presbyterian churches on standby if you need immediate assistance. The next session is at the end of October.

In Colossians 3:15-17 the author writes, "Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way." I pray that this opportunity will help me be in tune with you and you with me as well as help all of us be in tune with Red Springs. Please pray for me that I learn what I need to learn in this process. And please pray for the four of us as we travel.

By the way, Hinton Rural Life Center has great facilities if you want an inexpensive mountain vacation or to host a mountain family reunion as well. So here is their website, if you would like any more information: http://www.hintoncenter.org/

Mission of the Church

Good morning dear Trinity Tribe!

I am happy to report that my mother's pain has gone from a 10 to a 2 thanks to the injection yesterday. It was most unpleasant, but she is feeling much better! Thank you for your prayers!

Today I am thinking about the mission of the church. What are we supposed to do in the world? According to the United Methodist Book of Discipline in paragraph 120 (which is our over 200 year old living and breathing document of faith, laws, planning, polity, and process for the UMC), "the mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs." That task almost seems simple. We only have one thing to do in the world. However, when we dig deeper into the meaning of that, we can see how many levels there are to disciple making and world transformation.

Jesus tells his disciples, including us, that we are to go and make disciples of all nations and to baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. First, we have to go. We cannot just wait for people to walk through our doors. We have to be outside the doors inviting and welcoming people in both literally and figuratively. We also have to make disciples. Making something implies work. We can't just pray for disciples to happen. We have to love people. We have to teach people. We have to help people grow in faith, hope, and love. We have to invest in people. We cannot be stand-offish. We cannot let other people handle it. We have to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty in order to help people see the God that loves them so much.

The Book of Discipline goes on to describe how we carry out the mission in paragraph 122. We are to proclaim the gospel, seek, welcome and gather persons into the body of Christ…lead people to commit their lives to Christ…nurture people through worship, the sacraments, spiritual disciplines, and other means of grace…then send people into the world do the work of Christ. This cycle is continuously repeating and growing and dividing.

I invite us all to pray for how God will use each of us with our individual gifts to fulfill the mission of the Church. Perhaps you are called to make phone calls to cheer people up or reach out to someone who is new or hasn't been to church in a while…or you might be called to invite your neighbor to church…or to babysit for that busy mom who is at the end of her rope…or to visit someone who is homebound…or to be at worship every Sunday…or to help with Youth Group… There are as many ways to be Jesus in the world as there are grains of sand on the beach. I pray that we can all use our passions to go and make disciples for the transformation of the world, starting right here in Red Springs.

Have a great day

Thinking about Church with a capital "C"

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

What is the character of the church? What is the church like? As with any human organization, the church has not yet reached perfection. We are imperfect people in an imperfect band of believers. However, many wonderful things exist because of and have become real through congregations of people who believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The intrinsic qualities of the church are love, forgiveness, embodiment of the Gospel, and servant hood.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes the church as a body. He writes, “12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” We are all part of the body of Christ through our baptism. No matter our denomination; we are all connected through our brother, Christ, and washed in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The church is already but also not yet. We are already living into the Kingdom of God. However, the Kingdom has not fully come in Christ. We love God and neighbor, but we cannot fully love either until the kingdom has come which will enable us to love fully without our human reservations. We act in the world with Christ as our power source and as our guide, but our selfishness still prevails. Through us God is bringing about God’s kingdom. However, we are imperfect but are made perfect through Christ’s sacrifice.

Many people who are not Christians look upon us with disdain. We, as the Church, have done many things wrong and against our own teachings. After all, the Church did almost nothing to stop or at least protest against Hitler, we led the Crusades, we have turned a blind eye to hatred, suffering, and evil. Churches are full of hypocrites. Church is full of scandals be you Evangelical or United Methodist or Roman Catholic. Church cannot fix the world’s ills alone. We are certainly imperfect. Yet, we oftentimes pretend that we are perfect and everything is just fine. How often have we experienced someone being truly vulnerable at church? How often do we let other people help carry our “private” burdens? Could we work harder to live our beliefs in all that we do rather than from 11am-12pm on Sundays? Can we work harder to respond to pain, tragedy, and brokenness around the world but more importantly in our neighborhood? We cannot, as one congregation, wipe out all negative opinions and judgments about church. However, we can change perceptions one person at a time, as we love them as our neighbor.

What do you think the nature of the church is?

Sharing Our Faith

Kenna and I are here at the office this morning in the quiet. She has a doctor's appointment to get the plethora of skin tags off her eyelid at 1pm. She is excited about having them gone. Apparently every day at camp multiple people would tell her that she had something on her eyelid. Apparently every day at camp last week, someone and usually multiple someones told her that she had something on her eyelid. The first couple of days she told people the whole story of her having skin tags and having them removed twice from her eyelid already. Later in the week, she would just tell the person to ask someone who already knew the story because she was tired of telling it over and over. By Friday, she would just say "OK" to the person and go on. She got sick of explaining what was going on.

Are we ever like that as Christians? Sometimes when we first become a Christian or after we have been on Chrysalis or the Walk to Emmaus, we are like Kenna was at the beginning of the week…we tell our whole story about Christ and our relationship with him. When the newness starts to wear off, we start to shorten the story or tell it with less excitement. Later we tell other people with questions about Christianity, to go ask someone else. And finally, we choose to ignore those opportunities to share our faith story when it is inconvenient or if we feel uncomfortable.

How can we keep the excitement of being a new Christian when we have been one for a while or even a long time? I think it would help if we hung out with new Christians or people just coming to faith more often. I know that it is hard to NOT catch the excitement that Kenna and Hanna have over doing something simple like making brownies. So, it seems staying around new Christians would do the same thing. I think we should also invest in our faith like a new Christian. They seem to always be reading their Bibles or reading a book on Christianity. So, perhaps we could pick up one of those type books at the library next time we are there. (I have a whole bunch…Donald Miller…Andy Stanley…Marva Dawn….Dan Kimball…) We could also spend time reading our Bibles more diligently. Zondervan, the publisher of the New International Version of the Bible has several reading plans for the Bible. Here is the website for them, if you are interested:

http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/Bible/Plans.htm?QueryStringSite=Zondervan

New Christians seem to be the most dedicated about attending church. Could we all make a new commitment to be present more often? Jesus said that where two or more are gathered, he would be with us. So, I feel confident about being present at church and that I will be blessed in the gathering. We all are sick on occasion, of course. However, it is important to be with our fellow believers, even if it is at the church at the beach. (I get great ideas when I visit other congregations! So, bring some back from your vacation church visits!)

I pray that we all catch the fire that burns in the hearts of new believers and share that fire with everyone we meet!